[Carl Russell]

I downloaded the entire Bulletin… 825 pages of the whole forestry gammit circa 1912-25, Yale School of Forestry.

Here is just an example of the important detailed drawings…

And here is a picture at the beginning of Bulletin #13 “The Transportation of Logs on Sleds”…

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Nice find…

Carl

[Carl Russell]

@Does’ Leap 38808 wrote:

…… I loaded up a cord of wood + / – today and went just over half a mile (thanks to Google Earth I can now dial in my skid distance accurately). Although I will often “go light and go often” while ground skidding and using my arch, I tend to load as much on my scoot and sled as I think the horses can draw. When I am drawing fuel wood, I have a pretty substantial hill leading up to the house (in contrast, my sawlog landings are mostly downhill). I will often block off a quarter or more of the load at the bottom of the hill so they can make it up.
……..

This you? http://burlington.craigslist.org/grd/3459482153.html

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Far as I know, Les still has copies of the plans….. 603-332-0082

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Dan the swing-bunk should have stake pockets, and often those have rings on the side toward the rear of the sled. It is important that the chain does not wrap like it does on a fixed bunk sled, as the swing bunk can get out of orientation with the logs and sled, and then the swing won’t work.

I don’t have any pictures because the one time I tried a swing bunk with logs I found that the load swung too easily, swinging downhill on a sideling trail….. and I flipped the sled……:mad:

Good luck, Carl.

[Carl Russell]

@Does’ Leap 38808 wrote:

…. Carl, if you come up with an easier chaining method I would love to hear about it. Chaining time is the biggest drawback I can find to using a sled. ….

This is interesting. I’m sure it just has to do with practice. You may also be over-thinking it, because in the scheme of things it is really just a very small amount of the time in the context of cutting, skidding, rolling, and drawing the large load over a long distance.

Just hang in there. Eventually you’ll be able to do it in your sleep, which if you’re like me, you’re already doing… I mean actually in your sleep….. I constantly wake up from practicing some aspect of my work in my dreams…

On the kids in the woods, or other people, I am not anti-social. I regularly have visitors, helpers, and cooperate with others. I enjoy some of that for sure, and really like the symbiotic results of working with like minded folks with similar skills.

My kids have been with me in the woods from very early. I agree that many times, the work I do requires a level of exertion that makes it very difficult, and possibly dangerous for them to be in the woods with me, so I mostly work alone. Timber was riding with me the other day, setting chokers, and got a chance to drive the horses back into the woods from the landing.

In the hustle and bustle of the world I move around in, it is hard to remember the value of that product of time spent with my kids. Mitch reminded me of clearing brush for my father and the other men in the neighborhood while they cut wood when I was six years old. I remember getting to sit on the stump of a tree that “Barber-chaired”, and the old Mac 35, with points in the ignition, that would catch on fire when you started it, when fuel had been spilled during refilling.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

@Baystatetom 38814 wrote:

…..Nothing can make you run like hearing your load chain jingling and feeling the hot breath of a 1400 pound steer on the back of your neck!

Tom, back in the 90’s I worked Holsteins in the woods. I was pulling WHP down a long grade late in the season, so the trail was getting icy. I was using the bobsled, so it had a pole that they could hold back on, and due to conditions I was using bridle chains.

In this place the steep slope ended in a sharp turn, so I was just using a bridle on the inside runner. I had cut a tree into the trail earlier in the winter, and as I came down that time a limb, about 3″ in diameter and about 2 feet long, lodged itself into one of the links on the bridle chain. It effectively created a lifted runner, and completely disabled the the chain.

My cattle were about a ton each at the time, and I was walking quickly in front of them, mostly looking where I was putting my feet, while driving by leading. I heard a sort of grunt, and literally felt a warm rush of air on the back of my neck. I turned to see both steers back-peddling, eyes-wide, with the yoke pressed up against their horns.

I said “Come on boys”, and turned to run ahead while they struggled for just enough footing to keep on the trail. We came to a stop basically where we wanted to be, took a rest, undid the bridle chain, and then continued to the landing…… needless to say I didn’t need my cup of coffee at noon that day…..:rolleyes:

Have fun out there, Carl

[Carl Russell]

@Does’ Leap 38787 wrote:

….. However, recently I have found that the chain is getting trapped under my log as I try to shuck it over and moves from the center of the bunk toward the outside and under the log necessitating and extraction. ….

Do you have a pin, or U-bolt in the center of your bunk to hold those chains centered?

Just a single pin, or 5/8″ bolt into the back of the bunk will work. Place the chain on the opposite side of the bolt from the deck of logs you’re chaining to keep that chain from sliding in that direction.

Creativity is the secret. You may come up with a great innovation…. that I will want to use.

By the way, Les Barden and I tried to come up with a variation last year, but I have yet to get the sled to try it out.

Without a picture it may be difficult to describe very well. I was thinking that if there were 2 bitch links either welded, or otherwise attached, to the back of the bunk, perhaps inside a U-bolt, like on my sled, they could be used as the central hitch-point for the bunk chains. If they were slotted hooks, the chains could be dropped in rather than having to thread them through the bitch-link. In this manner, one would never have to actually twist the chains, and slack could be adjusted quicker and easier. This would also allow for shorter chains, and may simplify the attachment and weaving.

For that matter, one could use the U-bolt in the back of my bunk in a similar manner.

I am not apt to change the way I do it, as I think there is some functional advantage to chaining directly to the bunk. The twist is right on the bunk, so as the chains are tightened around the logs, they are attached tightly against the wood. I intuitively feel that these other methods would have too much slip-and-slide to them. Les was interested in a quick and simple (typical of his designs) way to attach logs to a light sled for light/quick loads, with minimal handling, which I admit could be a good hybrid of the cart and sled. In the right situations this could alleviate the risks that you are encountering.

Another part of the variation had to to with not needing to weave and use grabs over slip hooks. Of course this gets back to the light and often scenario, but we were theorizing that chains attached as described above could be basically laid out so that the choker hook would come up from below, and the loose end of the chains would then be drawn together in the center using a chain binder. This would probably not work if you were loading ten logs on the sled, but I just mention it here as encouragement to think outside the box as you strive for effective solutions to your working challenges.

I am stuck in my own habits, but it doesn’t mean others need to be too……:confused:

If nothing else, it might help prevent that slip hook from falling between the last two logs (a common occurrence with me)

I solve this by being a bit sloppy so that the hook hangs, then if there is too much length, I twist the chain a few times to shorten it to my desired position.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

George, I’m glad you were able to get home safely….

This post got me thinking about your other post about weaving the bunk chains. While I have reached between logs, I have never felt that I was anywhere near this kind of trap that you describe. Are you waiting until all the logs are on the bunk before you thread the chains?, thereby needing to reach through the logs to manage the chains.

I wrap my chains around the bunk before I load any logs, then weave chains around the 2,3,or 4 logs on the off side first. In this way you should be able to reach under the logs from either side without having to reach down through. Then as I load the near side I wrap each log as I load it.

You may already be doing that, but it just occurred to me to bring it up.

Working alone can be dangerous, but for me it is a reality, not only economic, but emotional. I HAVE to work alone. Not just because I’m an A-hole:p, but because it is my dance. I love the creative freedom of the work I do, and I thrive on it when I’m able to do it without distraction.

However, that requires a high degree of awareness to the potential dangers. Taking time to figure out how to move around these challenges is essential to working alone. Of course there’s nothing like a pinch like that to get you thinking about how to change your choices…… and of course that is why they call them accidents…… you never can be absolutely prepared.

Be safe out there, Carl

[Carl Russell]

Ed, I had to wait for early AM to get the bandwidth, so I finally was able watch. Nice job.

We had a brief discussion a while ago about the efficient use of a single horse in the woods, pertaining to skidding small sticks of wood long distances. Your video is a perfect example of using the horse and equipment to their best advantage. Twitching small logs, or small hitches, short distances to a landing area by a haul road, then using the incredible advantage of the double bobsled on snow to move a much bigger load much longer distance. The sled is a horse-drawn forwarder.

Just because you work off the farm all week, and you obviously enjoy doing this work, it does not mean that this is hobby work. You have improved the application of your horse to the work you do in your woodlot to high level of efficiency and proficiency. DAPNet may want to have a small-farm workshop featuring the advances you have made on your farm using your horse(s).

I always want to encourage folks, even if they think they are not working at a professional level, to take the work seriously, to push the limits of applying their horse to the work they have to do. The beauty of live power is the incredible range of application through intentional motivation and creative implementation of mechanical advantage that can turn the simple horse into a very effective multi-purpose power unit.

You have shown a great example here….. thanks for sharing.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

@highway 38769 wrote:

…..
I do the video myself with the aide of a tri pod. Cheating? I know……

How is that cheating????? That’s what it’s made for.

Nice job Ed, Carl

I agree about the pulp hook and/or the tongs. I use both, depending on the situation….

[Carl Russell]

It isn’t really economics vs. ecology. It comes down to the realization that when we use biological systems for economic gain that we need to place higher value on the inherent wisdom of the complex interrelationships that make those systems function than we currently are doing. If our long term goals are to insure we can utilize the products of those systems into perpetuity, then we need to protect, or even enhance, biological resiliency, or ecological integrity.

There are some folks who have found ways to measure some of these limitations. William Weida is an Agricultural Economist who has gone to lengths to show how economy of scale models don’t work when biological systems are involved. While some impacts can be limited by technological improvements, which are easily accommodated by the concepts of economy of scale, the inherent amorphous nature of the biological systems typically excludes impacts from the straight-line economics, resulting in reduced biological resiliency.

Organic farming methods are based on these concepts. Reducing detrimental impacts on the biological systems, soil ecology, animal health, etc., to build resiliency in the systems that supports the production of the vital product, food. Marketing has developed an intangible concept that organic food is better for you. We are still arguing about how to measure that.

I am not purporting some purist model, just a comparative approach to changing the impacts that the conventional methods create. Many people acknowledge that our modern society ignores vital connections to our environment, and the organisms inhabiting it. There are observable conditions of the natural forest. Recognizing how our methods cause impact on them does not require measurement. While I believe that the insistence on measurement is a stalling mechanism, I also understand that most people require more than intuition to direct their decisions.

I still contend that just by taking horses into the woods, you won’t have much to offer, other than the reduction of fossil-fuel consumption, or aesthetics. I have nearly 50 years of environmental education (my mother was an Env Ed), 40+ years of working and observing people working in the woods, 30 years of applied forestry knowledge and exposure to the industry, and 27 years experience working draft animals in the woods.

In my mind it still comes down to how you care about the work you do, how you apply the skills, methods, techniques, and principles that you have, that makes the product superior. Unless you undertake some sort of intensive training, you will have a hard time other than years of practice, to verify that you can deliver that product.

Even IF we can come up with a measure of the relative economic value of the product, it will still come down to how well you can document that you can deliver what you say you will do.

During this month I am going to follow up on my contact with the resource economists at UVM to try to determine where there are measurable parameters, and how we can determine the broad ecological impacts/benefits of different methods.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

@Does’ Leap 38747 wrote:

…….Does this “rule” (i.e. how to start with the slip hook on the bunk) make sense? Does my twist seem correct? I think on this same thread you wrote to think of the bunk as another log and what I am doing here (I think) seem to be consistent with that.George

It looks fine George. My rule is that I keep my chains exactly the same, time and time again, so I never have to think about which hook is where. My bunk chains are 15 feet long, and I would rather just uncoil them and lay them out, instead of handling the whole length one way or the other to change the way I thread them. The slip end is rarely more than 5 feet long, so I find it pretty easy to just pull it back and reverse the twist at the center if there is an odd number.

Practice makes perfect. Part of the art is finding the modifications that work for you.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

@near horse 38724 wrote:

….What would be a good base to build a management system around? I know (maintaining?) ecological integrity was mentioned but how would we measure that (sounding like Andy :p)? …….
With the 3rd party certification process idea – would the proposed harvest need to be evaluated as well as the result?

I am not sue that we need to have a “measure” for Ecological Integrity, as much as we establish the “value” of Ecological Integrity. We are faced with a culture that measures the functional value of land-use through economic return. Pure and simple. We are held hostage by this, needing to somehow show that ecological services, that pay material dividends to biological entities miles and years away from the “here and now”, are equally economically valuable.

Jason’s Draft Wood establishes guidelines for harvesting operations that incorporate observable methods that reduce impact on soil and the nature the forest stand, and which improve the value of the residual stand by growing the best trees for future harvest and removing the lowest quality trees first, using draft-animal power. The third party review doesn’t measure how close these methods are to true ecological integrity, they just verify that the methods have been employed as they were intended to be.

The Draft Wood mission clearly describes the belief that these methods protect ecological services in ways that conventional/mechanical operations cannot, and it is the responsibility of the prospective client to determine if they are willing to see these long-term, non-quantifiable, values brought to bear on their property.

As in so many other things, the onus is on the operator to perfect techniques that employ the draft-animals to their greatest abilities, and to use cultivation methods that not only protect long term ecological health, but create a residual timber stand that continues to grow vigorously as a functional forest ecosystem and as an ever-increasing resource of quality sawtimber. This is where the certified training comes in.

This method may not answer the questions of those observing from the outside, looking to find a broad sweeping solution based on measurables as a way to turn around a set of cultural habits, but in local or regional markets and communities it can be effective, leaving the determination up to thoughtful interaction of real people.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Super!!! It only makes sense:rolleyes:. We are so happy for you both, and your families. We were so tickled to know you had found each other, and it was clear from the beginning that you will do amazing things together.

Cheers.

Carl

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